HELIX Conference - April 7, 2005

Attendance: Sara Clark, Brian Heaton, Mark Carl, Karyn O'Dell, Wade Tripp, Dianne Dennison, Theresa McCoy, Diane Richmond, Julie Moriarty, Grayson Gordon, Frank Williams, Dan Blakesee, and a visitor from MOREnet.

Chair Sara Clark gave a brief description of HighEdWeb and update of the HighEdWeb national organization. The HighEdWeb organization in New York is expanding to a national level. Once the national organization is established, there is a possibility the Missouri HighEdWeb group can become a Missouri chapter of the national organization.

Election of new officers for 2005-2006:

• Mark Carl from Maryville University was elected Chair-Elect.
• Karyn O'Dell from Ozark Technical Community College was elected Secretary.

Open Discussion:

Students are requesting blogs on the university web sites. How do you satisfy the web site expectations of both the administration and the students?

Wade Tripp, Park University, stated they have been using an rss feed. The first used a small group of CIS students for testing the blog. The blog is not monitored but hasn't been a problem so far. Will work into the classroom eventually to see how it works.

Diane Richmond, Truman University, stated the Fear Factor involved with blogs may be caused by the change in information that is typically put on web. In the past information has been controlled, but that control is absent in blogs. An option may be "trumanblogs.com" because its not on main web site.

Sara Clark, Missouri State University, stated that from a legal standpoint, once you accept the role of moderator, you are responsible for what it published. If you don't moderate then you take the role of an ISP.

Web standards CSS AND XHTML

Most found the conversions were time consuming but establishing CSS now decreases redesign time in the future. Most designers design for Firefox, IE, Netscape and PDA display

What kind of check systems do developers use for publishing pages edited by others?

• OTC – web team previews all pages before they go live. Also use Contribute to lock down designated areas.
• Park University - Give others access who make a lot of changes but make small infrequent changes for others.
• Truman – gives access to web editors and makes frequent back ups so files can be restored. Editors work live and don't usually have problems.
• Missouri State - does not oversee what it published. Address issues as they arise.

What types of portal systems are being used?

• OTC = UNICON Academics portal.
• Truman = Luminas
• Park University = JICS

How do you handle fixing errors for people?

• Missouri State - steer it back to the person who created the problem.

• Accessibility issues: course sites that require alt tags for screen readers.

Topics to consider for next conference:

• Portals

• Online calendars
• Satisfying administration and students expectations of web site
• Open source software
• Wikis
• Usability, designing for the student

Meeting was adjourned.